North Korea has issued some of the most bellicose rhetoric against the US that we’ve heard in years, asserting that its nuclear weapons and missile tests are targeted against the US. The rhetoric followed the issuance of new sanctions against the North Korean weapons program. It’s difficult to assess how serious the threats are, but they were convincing enough to provoke the Chinese to condemn the North Korean rhetoric.
The economic situation in several European states is dire, and perhaps the country suffering the most from the economic recession is Spain. It is difficult to imagine the economic hardships the Spanish people are enduring, but The Atlantic has a short piece that gives some perspective on how desperate the situation is. Some of the Spanish statistics are significantly worse than those of the Great Depression.
The French intervention in Mali seems to have stemmed the immediate threat of the extremists, but such interventions are always difficult over time. The French have had some experience with such interventions in the past (Algeria, 1954; Vietnam, 1954), and none of those cases worked out well for the French. There may be some special circumstances in Mali that may favor the French intervention, but it’s hard to see a success if the intervention lasts a long time.
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